Tag Archives: cinema

In the late sixties and early to mid seventies, while Spain was still under Franco’s last years of dictatorship, Spanish cinema entered two important periods known as “Landismo” (named after actor Alfredo Landa) and “Destape” (The Strip Period). Lots of bizarre, soft-erotic/comedy and exploitation films were shot, most of them featuring groovy and delirious soundtracks. Serious and well-respected musicians like Anton Garca Abril, Adolfo Waitzman and Gregorio Garcia Segura incorporated the latest musical trends which came from other European countries like Italy and France to their work. This was a frenetic period, in which these composers adopted the hip and modern sounds of the time to their compositions for soundtracks, mixing them with their Spanish roots, resulting in an avalanche of incredible soundtracks for exploitation films. Virtually every Spanish comedy/exploitation/action film released during 1968 and 1974 included the typical scene of “young people dancing to groovy music at the club full of weird hippies”, especially if the directors were people like Pedro Lazaga and Mariano Ozores and the cast featured actors like Alfredo Landa or Jos Luis Lopez Vasquez. Sadly, the majority of these soundtracks are lost forever, as they were never released on vinyl and the audio master tapes usually were erased or ended up in the trashcan. On ‘Psicotronica’ you’ll find tracks taken from real soundtracks along others which sound 100% cinematic but were never included in any film. All of them taken from unknown records released in Spain between 1968 and 1978, including many rare library private recordings. A real fest of Spanish styled blaxploitation & library grooves, psychedelic funk full of flute, fuzz and wah-wah guitars, Hammond grooves, sexploitation sounds, bossa-scat nuggets, thriller-spy-action. grooves. (http://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various_artists_f2/psicotronica__vol__1__spanish_cinematic_grooves_and_funky_soundtracks_1968_1978/)

This description could fit the way in which Indian movies depicted the ‘hip’ world of grooving Western young people in the same period. While you won’t find any sitars or table mixed in with rock n’ roll you will be charmed by screaming guitars, soul horns and much agitated jabbing of organ keyboards. Excellent stuff! Freak out your friends at the next party with this soundtrack replete with soft porn murmurs of ‘si, si, si’!

Sorry for the down turn in posts, but in the past 2 months I’ve shifted gears dramatically. I am now living overseas, away from my beloved family. I’ve jumped feet first into a new job which promises to keep me more than busy for as far as I can see. Through all of this I’ve not had much time or opportunity to keep the Posts going.

But as it is Friday night and I’ve got some space to slow the pace down a bit over the weekend, I’ll share a tasty little bit of musical fun.

Tripped out psychedelia from the Italian cinema scene – great stuff from the late 60s through mid 70s – filled with percussion heavy mod rhythms, loads of leftfield oddball flourishes, and pulpy grooves galore! This set was compiled by Carlo Bagnolo and Claudio Fuiano who do a terrific job of assembling trippy, but never too wild stuff by some of the heavyweights of the era, along with some less familiar names – and the tunes are total gems! It’s a mostly wordless batch, with some surprisingly funky bass and percussion, loungey horns, strings and flute, and loads of trippier elements at the fringes! Titles include “She’s A Born Loser” by Phil Clinton & Peter Smith, “Bali” (new edit) and “Donna Piu'” by Giorgio Gaslini, “2968” by Carlo Savina, “Danza Primitiva” and “Cinque Bambole Rosa by Piero Umiliani, “Blue Rhythm Festival” (new edit) by Piero Piccioni, “Mood” by Augusto Martelli, “Fai Presto, Fai Presto” by Gianni Ferrio and more. 14 tracks in all – a number of which are on CD for the first time ever! (Dusty Groove)